The UAFC

The doc knew it was time to move. He had to take a risk and a seven figure p.a. contract.

Can't see Jackson being included in the 31 man squad, but he will be involved in the warm-ups and be on standby as injury cover. That might mean his Ulster time will be managed to ensure he is both fit and fresh, but he should be available. Paradoxically I can see Diack being in the RWC squad. He is...

Echoes of another similar haircut - someone said 'Are you mad Sir?' and he said 'Yes, I'm Ian Madigan'.

Hanrahan is a Centre who can kick, but the truth is he's too small to be a Test option. He has been good at 10 when the pack is going forward but clueless in retreat and doesn't have the knowhow to change it. Madigan and him are twins separated by a few years.

Logan is in charge of the commercial side of UR, Humphreys was in charge of the Rugby teams, and everything to do with the players. Humphreys left because he was offered a contract for four years that was far in excess of what he was on with Ulster - simples. What world class coach is going to come ...

Ulster should be resting the guys they need for the Pro12 during the 6N window. That means Black, Herring, Jackson, Olding and Gilroy should be nowhere near Toulon.

So is it time for Ulster to give up club competition and just compete with Georgia to be the seventh nation in the Annual NH Test series?

Of course you'd have to add Diack and Payne in there who have qualified by residency.

Can I just get this straight - Doak is being slated as being a poor coach for subbing Cave for Payne, in comparison to Anscombe who instilled Payed as his first choice 13 in preference to Cave? Anscombe (the backrow specialist) promoted McComish into his number one bench cover, and Mark should still...

Herbst went off injured after a couple of minutes of the second half so Bross had to come on. The scrum held up fine on the LH side so debatable about Warwick when Ulster needed all the experience they could get on the pitch. There was a shot of Cave bent over (maybe throwing up) and blowing hard - ...

Just seen Flyhalf's post and don't understand why Cave is included in his headless chickens. Cave was not on the pitch when they scored tries two and three! The panic started to set in shortly after the Ulster third try. Cave threw two passes to no one in particular and caused a lot of scrambling d...

Simple. You don't go for a bonus point and do take your easy points until you are well ahead with no chance of losing and the other team is demoralised. 24 points ahead is far enough as is still 17, how far do you want to go and have you seen an Italian team that actually ever get demoralised as I ...

What perhaps is lacking here is the number of boys at 16 that drop off the radar completely because 2nd/3rd XVs either are treated as Gannon fodder or don't have enough games through out the season. If that's the case and they maybe only get Wednesday games why not actively encourage them to go dow...

Players have to make decisions all the time - they can't look to the dugout for semaphore. Sometimes it's the right thing to give away a penalty, and sometimes not. When your team is on a final warning and there is no threat, don't get pinged just before halftime in front of the posts. OTOH when you...

Where Ulster lose out against the other provinces is simple - there needs to be a root and branch rethink regarding the Ulster Schools Cup. Kids leaving school now have no connection to clubs or any reason to get involved with them. There are only two or three schools capable of winning the USC and ...

A lot of the ruck decisions are 50:50. What makes McCaw so good is that he has a clear arm extension between the tackle and diving in for the ball - refs like that. What makes Tuohy's action so stupid was that it was at best 50:50 how the ref would look at it, and even if it had come off Ulster woul...